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All the other pages are
kept up to date on a more regular basis, so don't just look here.
News on runners and entries is on the
Horses Bred page and on the Horses in Training
page if they run in our colours.
News on the mares and foals is in the obvious place. |
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| February 2008 |
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English Rose's second start was
an improvement on her first. Second and could have gone closer. Bon Ton Roulet
ran a little better in her first start in handicaps over 1of at Lingfield
Sabaah Elfull had a nice foal. A colt by Ifraaj. |
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| January
2008. |
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Started well enough with
Deep Purple finishing second in a Grade 1
Novice Hurdle at Sandown with talk of a Cheltenham festival appearance.
Soon deteriorated with Mousseline aborting her foal. A filly by Invincible
Spirit.
Got a little worse on the 19th when we had runners in our colours on both
sides of the Atlantic.
Bon Ton Roulet ran poorly at Lingfield Park after showing promise on her
previous start and English Rose's debut at Tampa Bay Downs was woeful.
Sadists can find the detail on
Horses in Training.
Finished OK on the 29th when Lyna had our first
foal of the year. A nice looking filly by Whipper. |
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We tried to change
the format of Flash News in 2007 and make it a blog. Got to keep up we
thought. Enthusiasm for this change wore out pretty quickly as regular
visitors to the site will have spotted. First entry was December 31st,
last entry January 18th.
It was combination of factors.
Too busy, not enough happening, couldn't be arsed and the feeling that blogging is
a self-regarding waste of cyberspace.
We've left the entries up anyway for the curious. |
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Flash looking particularly handsome and alert in the
February
snow at West Lodge.
Tail out of focus due to being perpetually in wag mode. Don't be fooled by
the appearance of attentively awaiting his owners command. Not a chance. |
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January 18th
First foal of the year arrived at Templeton Stud, a filly foal by
Doyen out of
Impatiente,
the first Doyen foal to be born. A big week for the old girl with another
of her daughters, "Alana's Gift" winning her maiden the day before in
South Africa and getting a mention in Thoroughbred Daily News and the
Darley Stud web-site. Celebrity culture.
Talking of which Chase now has his own web-site go to
www.flickr.com/photos/chasehs/ for a selection of recent portraits by
Annie Leibowitz, Mario Testino and his uncle Sam. |
January 16th
Blogging needs more application or more
happening - probably both. It's January 16th and the first entry for a
fortnight. It's
raining. England beat New Zealand in the one day international in Australia. First victory of the tour. Nothing to very much to report on
our herd. Christophe saw English Rose training and his words on her are on
the Horses in Training page. Sean reports that Roses
and Dixie are well. They sound like a music hall act don't they? I'm
reading an anthology of the world's greatest diarists called 'The
Assassin's Cloak' - well dipping into it more than reading but that's easy
to do because it's organized on a day by day basis starting Jan 1st so I
can see what more practised diarists than I were saying on the day to give
me a few pointers.
Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964) was the daughter of artist Ernst Jacob
Schindler. She pursued a career in music and kept a diary for only four
years from 1898 to 1902. The entry for January 3rd 1902 reads "Bliss and
rapture". January 4th is "Rapture without end". Alma at the time of
writing was having an affair with artist Gustav Klimt and during her life
had affairs with practically all of the creative men in Central Europe.
This reduced the amount of time available for diarising which is maybe why
her entries were so succinct. Alma married three of her lovers, composer
Gustav Mahler, architect and founder of the Bauhaus movement Walter
Gropius and author Franz Werfel who wrote Song of Bernadette. She is
remembered in a song of Tom Lehrer's . The first chorus goes.
Alma, tell us, - all
modern women are jealous-
Which of your magical
wands
Got you Gustav and Walter
and Franz
Went to the afternoon show of ' Last King of Scotland'. Only worth it for
Forrest Whittaker's performance as Idi Amin.
January 2nd
2007 started with the 5-0 whitewash in the
Ashes. Now we can go back to having the alarm set on the radio in the
morning. Stopped doing that after Adelaide when we went to bed looking to
be on for at least a draw and woke to hear the dread words "batting
collapse".
December 31st
2006 ended well. We have a grandson. The first. He's called Chase and was
born on 17th of December. He was slightly below average weight but above
average length (height?) has big feet, blonde hair like Leon and a smile
like Yasmin.
Tattersalls December Sales ( although they actually happen in November)
was the final sale of the year for us.
Rather than be engulfed in the wall of money from the boom
or bubble in Irish property values we sat out the sales on the non-buyers
bench. We did dissolve the foal-share with Darley on Seal Indigo's Dubai
Destination filly though. I was invited to shoot by Brian Meehan at Manton
in the week after the sales and met the owner of "Magical Romance" the
mare that sold for Gns4,600,000. |
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to see
edited news
items for 2003 and 2004 and all of 2005 and 2006
click here
for archived news |
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